Wayzata home sells for $4.85 million

This home at 539 Harrington Road in Wayzata sold for $4.85 million on Dec. 17, making it the top residential sale of the year in Hennepin County. (Submitted photo: George Heinrich Photography)

Italy travels inspired design of lakefront home

A listing broker from Coldwell Banker Burnet and a buyer’s agent from Edina Realty have teamed up in a year-end closing on the biggest residential home sale in Hennepin County for 2012.

The sale of the $4.85 million home at 539 Harrington Road in Wayzata, which closed Dec. 17, edged out the $4.8 million sale of an Edina property that sold Sept. 5.

Robert and Linda Redmond had bought the original home and 1.57-acre lot on Lake Minnetonka in 1993 for $1.15 million. They tore it down in 1998 to make room for architect Peter McDonald’s design: a sprawling traditional residence, influenced by the couple’s travels in Italy.

The home drew eight showings in the first two weeks and was on the market only 45 days before Bill and Beccah Risdall of North Oaks bought it through trusts created in their names.

“The key was getting it priced under $5 million,” said listing broker Robert Hare of Coldwell’s Wayzata office. “If you don’t get it in the strike zone, it will just sit there.”

Hare said the Redmonds had been clients for more than 20 years and empty nesters ready to downsize.

The Risdalls were working with agent Hazelann Lucht to find a home on Lake Minnetonka.

“I just happened to have the right one,” Hare said. He noted that the five-bedroom, six- bath home had many great features, but perhaps the most striking was the living room. The space, which featured two massive fireplaces, a wall of windows looking out over the lake and room for a grand piano, was 35 feet long and had a 30-foot ceiling.

“You could fit my first house in that room,” Hare said.

Hare has had the biggest sale of the year before, although it was several years ago. He said sales of this size were more common at the top of the market, which peaked in late 2006. He said prices now are about where they were 10 years ago.

Lucht didn’t know she had a record sale until called for a comment. “That’s pretty cool,” said Lucht, who works in the Edina’s Eden Prairie office and has been in business 25 years. She said the buyer was a good friend and her former financial planner, who was looking for a home with her husband. “She just fell in love with it online before she even saw it in person,” Lucht said.

Finance & Commerce reported the Top 10 home sales of the year, based on information filed with the county through Dec. 4. The top sale on that list was a home at 5224 Schaefer Road in Edina.